Eileen Maksym's Blog, page 28

Curious about my book Haunted? Check out these excerpts!

Meet Steven, Tara, and Paul – our intrepid trio and the members of the Society of Paranormal Researchers.


Steven talks to the owner of a haunted house to get permission to investigate.


Steven and Tara have an eerie encounter in the stacks of the university library.


While retrieving the key, Steven encounters a real estate agent in denial about what she experienced inside the house.


The trio’s investigation goes very wrong, very fast.

Gift From God – part 1

 

Jane, my beloved cat, who died this past Saturday.  She was 19 years old, and part of my life for 16 of those, so I figured her story deserves to be told.  Here is part one, with parts two and three to come later in the week.

 

 

When I first met Jane, I was disappointed.

It was the summer before my junior year, and I had decided to live off-campus.  My studio apartment was tiny and spartan, but the only thing it really lacked to make it home was a cat.  I had heard about the Greater New Haven Cat Project a couple years before, when a woman in the lawyer’s office where I worked managed to box up a mommy feral cat and her kittens that lived in the bushes next to the office’s parking lot.  I knew the group rescued strays and were always looking for homes for the cats in their care.  All the cats in my family had been rescues – from the Humane Society, a Kmart parking lot, a neighbor who was moving – so I contacted the GNHCP to ask what cats they had available for adoption.  They told me there was a three year old female tortie that was in immediate need of a home since her foster was moving out of town.  I agreed to see her.

The foster was a law student who was graduating and moving to New York City and, as much as it obviously pained her, she couldn’t bring the cat with her.  She greeted me, then called for the cat, and Jane came running into the room, then ground to a halt when she saw me.

She wasn’t what I expected.  I had wanted an affectionate and pretty cat, and Jane was shy with mottled brown, tan and black fur.  As disappointed as I felt, though, I didn’t have the heart to turn her down.  If I didn’t take her in, she would go into a cage to await someone else willing to adopt her, and how long would that be?

When I first brought Jane into my apartment, she sniffed every single square inch of the place…then hid under the couch and refused to come out.  I waited patiently, reading and browsing the web for a couple hours.  She stayed hidden.  Finally, I got a can of tuna.  The minute I peeled back the top, Jane came creeping out.  She let me pet her while she ate the tuna, and we were friends from that moment on.

She was still very shy at first.  Whenever other people came into the apartment, she would go right back under the couch.  My friends would joke that they didn’t believe I even had a cat, because they never saw her.  It took a while, but eventually she would come out to sniff at the occasional hand, endure the occasional pat.  When we were alone, though, she would curl up in my lap while I studied, or at my feet while I slept.  Like many cats, she had an uncanny ability to know when I was feeling sad or stressed (all too often that year) and would come to me purring, butting her head against my leg or my arm.

My senior year, I decided to return to campus, which meant I needed to find a place for Jane for the year.  My good friend Sarah, who had graduated the year before, offered to take her in.  It seemed like a good arrangement for both of them; Jane had someone who would take good care of her, and Sarah had an increasingly friendly cat to keep her company and make her own place feel like home that first year out of college.

 

IN PART TWO: a feline nomad, an adversary, and a death sentence…

Caring for an ailing kitty

I’m going to be uncharacteristically brief today.  Our 19 year old cat Jane is doing very poorly.  She had a seizure on Tuesday night, which we didn’t think much about, since she’s been having them occasionally for almost a year now.  On Wednesday, though, I discovered she was too weak to jump up to her bed and food on the bathroom counter.  She couldn’t walk very well, and continued to grow weaker until she slipped in what appeared to be a coma.  I stayed up with her on Wednesday night, and Thursday, yesterday, I stayed home, convinced she was about to die and not wanting her to die alone.

When my husband came home that afternoon, we decided to try giving her some water with sugar.  She woke up, obviously aware of her surroundings, yet still unable to do much besides weakly and slowly move her paws.  We’ve been giving her sugar water periodically, and she drinks it from the syringe now instead of us having to trigger her swallow reflex.  She seems to be getting a little stronger, obviously trying to get up from her position on her side, even if she doesn’t have the strength to do so.

When I was convinced she would not regain consciousness, I figured there was nothing a vet could do. It would just be wasted time and money.  Now, though…I wonder if she could recover.  So I’m going to call the vet’s office at 2pm…the end of their surgery time…to see if we can bring her in sometime today.  Until then, I’m here at home with her, giving her sugar water and petting her, wishing I could somehow do more.

 

UPDATE: Took Jane to the vet.  She’s dehydrated and malnourished, which makes sense considering she hasn’t been eating or drinking.  The vet gave her some subcutaneous fluids and vitamins, and handed me a tube of Nutri-Cal and instructions on when to give her water and how much.  She already looks much better…she’s holding up her head, which she wasn’t able to do before.  God willing, she might be able to get through this.  We’ll have to be much more careful about her drinking and eating enough from now on.

Back on track and talking about tapas!

My book blog tour was derailed last week due to Heartbleed.  When those posts are online, I will link to them here.  Until then, here’s the stop for today!  I’m interviewed on My Love For Books about my writing schedule and I talk about my favorite meal in my favorite restaurant in Cambridge, MA.  Check it out!

The Yellow Submarine Principle

 

I love Yellow Submarine.  I have ever since I was a kid.  The unabashed surreality tickles that imaginative part of my brain that believes that even the fantastic is possible.  Not to mention the Beatles are my favorite band. 

However, whenever I think about Yellow Submarine, I cannot help but remember that the Beatles didn’t actually voice their animated counterparts.  This sort of disconnect between appearance and substance is pretty common.  Think of Nancy Drew; the series is ostensibly written by Carolyn Keene, but Keene doesn’t exist, and the novels are penned by a team of ghostwriters. Think of the 1969 erotic romance novel Naked Came The Stranger by “Penelope Ashe”, which was actually written by a group of journalists to be intentionally and horrifically bad as proof that American readers have abominable taste. (Sure enough, it became a bestseller, and the authors hired an actress to go on book tours as “Penelope.”)  And Milli Vanilli aren’t the only musical group in history where the pretty voices don’t actually come from the pretty faces.

I’m sure this phenomenon goes beyond the arts.  Take politics.  When we elect someone to public office, who are we actually electing?  A candidate?  Or a pretty face and pretty voice saying pretty words fed to them by speechwriters who work for parties or lobbyists or masons or lizard people?  Who is the man (or woman…or reptile…) behind the curtain?

(I’m joking about the lizard people.)

(Maybe.)

Haunted Graveyards

��

This monument,��in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, is the subject of many legends. ��Legend has it the girl Inez��was hit by lightning, and the monument vanishes during thunderstorms. ��Legend has it she died of tuberculosis and the statue weeps on the anniversary of her death. ��Legend has it she comes out to play with children who visit the cemetery. ��People who visit the grave often leave stuffed animals.

In the world of my��Haunted��series, cemeteries are very rarely, if ever, haunted. ��In those metaphysics, a haunting is the result of a deep attachment��to a location (or sometimes a person) that keeps a spirit bound��to the physical world and unable to transcend to the spiritual. ��The attachment isn’t to the body, and thus places like funeral homes and cemeteries aren’t haunted. (Unless they’re haunted by former funeral directors or gravediggers!)

In real life, I’m intrigued by tales of haunted monuments. ��Chicago has several, including one in Rosehill Cemetery, where I used to work (a tomb for a mother and child that is said to be enshrouded with mist on the anniversary of their deaths). ��Even if there is nothing paranormal going on (and I remain agnostic on the subject) the psychology of it is fascinating. ��We are simultaneously frightened of and drawn to the restless dead. ��We want to believe that when we talk to a loved one at their grave,��there is more listening than birds and worms and cold earth. ��But we’d still run in terror if someone or something were to talk��back.

My husband’s family lives in the Chicago area, so chances are we’ll be visiting in the near future. ��I’m going to have to visit Inez. ��I’ll even bring a stuffed animal, in case the legends are true, and the girl, so young and yet so ancient, still wants to play.

Me vs. Technology

��

My hard drive recently crashed and crashed hard. ��One minute it was fine, the next there wasn’t even enough of it left to give me a Blue Screen of Death. ��All my stories, all my work for my recent book blog tour, all of it was on that drive. ��I (foolishly) had very little of it backed up.

If I had been on my own, I would have thought it all irrevocable…or, at least, only revocable if I was willing to shell out a lot of money that I don’t have to a data recovery service. ��Thank goodness I was not on my own. ��My husband Pete is far more knowledgeable than I about pretty much everything technology-based. ��He was able to put my hard drive on life support with a flash drive of Ubuntu, and extracted all my files. ��I ordered a new hard drive on Amazon, and while I breathlessly awaited its arrival, I worked on my book tour materials as my computer ran off of Ubuntu on a flash drive sticking out of one side, and saved on a second flash drive sticking out from the other. ��Fine for documents, not enough for internet.

When my hard drive arrived, Pete spent several hours installing it, installing Ubuntu, and troubleshooting it when the operating system refused to play ball with my WiFi. ��The fact that I am posting this right now is testament to his time and abilities. ��I still periodically call him over when Ubuntu confounds me.

��“Pete, how do I restart?”

“Pete, how do I install software?” ��

“Pete, why is my screen dark?”

I swear, the man has the patience of a thousand saints.

I’ve never been particularly good at computers. ��I took two computer courses at Yale: EE 101, which is��the gut to end all guts, and a java class, which I took credit/D/fail, and which I am still convinced I didn’t utterly fail only because one of the TAs was a friend of mine. ��And it’s gotten worse as computers have developed and my knowledge of them has not. ��I can do a very basic HTML, enough that if I was writing this post in text only, I would know how to insert that picture of a keyboard out there with an img src= . ��But modifying my blog on WordPress? ��Figuring out how to use Hootsuite? ��Trying to set up my gmail so that I don’t have to log out and log back in whenever I want to switch between my main account and my Apex Magazine account? ��I’m shocked I still have hair left!

Thank God for Pete, patron saint of the technologically clueless.

Looking over the Cliffs of Moher

Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher are amazing, beautiful, and terrifying.  They peak at 702 feet above the water, and almost a million people visit them a year, making them one of the most popular tourist destinations in Ireland.  At the peak there is a path that’s lined with a stone wall, keeping visitors a good five feet from the edge.  It winds up to O’Brien Tower, which offers an astounding view out over Galway Bay.

If you look at this photograph, though, you can see the grass on the left hand edge give way to flat grey rock.  That section is beyond the wall.  It is nominally closed to tourists, and there is a sign warning of high winds and the possibility of the edge crumbling into the ocean far, far below.  It’s very dangerous.

Which, of course, is why so many people hop that wall.

When my husband and I were in Ireland on our honeymoon, we hopped the wall.  It was a beautiful day, bright blue skies, no wind.  We took turns crawling to the very edge on our bellies to peek over, the other holding onto our ankles (as if that could save us if the edge gave way).  We looked down, so far down, at the sea birds wheeling in the air well below us, at the crash of the waves, blue green water turning white on impact with the rock.  Even from over 700 feet above, I could feel the salt spray on my face.

Thinking of this gives me goosebumps, even now.  It was stupid.  I would never do it again.

But I can’t say I regret it.

Death Be Not Proud

��

��

When I was a senior in high school, one of my classmates died.�� Robert and I had never been friends, but we were both part of the “Challenge” program in middle school, a small intimate group that had almost all our classes together.�� When we reached high school, we were in many of the same honors classes.�� We all knew him as a quiet person, a good student, and an exceptional musician who played piano, trumpet, and, most notably, bagpipes.

Robert hadn’t been entirely well for as long as I’d known him.�� In sixth grade he had surgery to remove cysts in his sinuses.�� In tenth grade he had a seizure in chemistry class.�� The night he died, he was home playing the piano when he had another seizure.�� The responding paramedics gave him an injection of something that he reacted badly to; he stopped breathing, and never started again.

We all found out the next morning.�� Even though he and I had never been close friends, the news was stunning.�� I was numb for the rest of the day, the rest of the week. It was like the color had been sucked out of the world, like all sound was muffled and flat.�� I can’t even imagine what it was like for those who were close to him.

Most of the teachers tried to go about business as usual, and the routine was some comfort.�� But by AP English, the last class of the day, all of us were weary, and it showed.�� Our teacher Mrs. Glancy watched us all file in, silent and stooped with sadness.�� I saw a woman sitting in one corner of the classroom, and remembered that Mrs. Glancy was being observed that day by a member of the Golden Apple committee.�� She had been nominated for the prestigious award some weeks earlier, and told us someone would be visiting our class.

We all took our seats, the room empty of the usual chatter, and the bell rang into the void.�� We all looked toward Mrs. Glancy, expecting what we had gotten all day, a sincere expression of sympathy then a gentle entrance into the day’s lessons.�� It was what the observer was expecting as well, so that she could evaluate her teaching ability.

Instead, Mrs. Glancy walked to the podium with a book in hand, and set it down, opening to a marked place.�� She paused, glanced up at us, then read aloud John Donne’s poem “Death Be Not Proud.”��

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

��

When the last words had settled back into silence, she looked up.

“I want you all to take out some paper and a pen.”�� The class rustled as we obeyed.�� She waited until we were ready, then continued.�� “I want you to write.�� Write whatever you want, whatever you need.�� A poem, a story, a letter, anything.�� You’re not going to turn this in.�� It’s entirely up to you whether you show this to anyone at all.�� Write for you.”

She went to her desk, sat down, took out a piece of paper and a pen for herself, and started writing.

It was the exact right thing to do, for all of us, and the exact right lesson to teach that day: that poetry has the power to speak to us wherever we are, and that writing is a tool that is not only available but vital to everyone.�� Ironically, it also scuttled her chances of winning the Golden Apple that year, a lesson in and of itself, that doing the right thing doesn’t always win awards.

I wrote a letter to Robert that day, but I don’t remember what it said.�� It wasn’t any timeless masterpiece, and I’ve long since thrown it away.�� The point wasn’t the product.�� The point was the process.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Next stop of the Book Blog Express, and it’s a two-fer!

♠

The electromagnetic indicator ticked.
“Guys?” Paul’s voice was edged with tension.
Tara and Steven turned.
Paul was hastily backing away from the fireplace. “Guys, something is going on here…”
The indicator ticked again.
A flash of lightning, a CRACK of thunder.
And the lights went out.

Read more of this Haunted excerpt HERE at My Reading Problem

♠

And read a guest blog post on the importance of book covers HERE at Unbiased Book Reviews!